Dead Head

by C. J. Skuse

  The statue of David was impressive – I’ll give Florence that. He was taller than I’d imagined and we were reliably informed by our guide that ‘in Michelangelo’s day, a small penis was thought a thing of great beauty.’

  ‘Yeah, in the days before they gave women an opinion,’ I heckled. Well, Rhiannon heckled. Hilary would never have said such a thing. It made me laugh though, even though nobody else did.

  Actually, one person laughed – Jayde Prosser. She and I wandered around the Uffizi together, Ryan bringing up the rear with the double buggy.

  ‘Thanks for coming with us today,’ she said. ‘It means a lot.’

  ‘De nada,’ I said. ‘How you goin’ today?’

  ‘I’m good. Now that he’s stopped treading on eggshells around me and Ken and Glo aren’t with us. We needed a day without them.’ She looked behind us to check that Ryan wasn’t listening in.

  I wanted to tell her about Ivy – that I knew how she felt, that she could confide in me, as a fellow mother. But I stopped myself. Because I wasn’t a mother. I’d given birth, yes, but I hadn’t stuck around for the hard part. I had no idea what Jayde was experiencing. Her baby was dead. I knew mine was still alive. I had hope. Jayde was hope-less.

  And a strange sensation came over me – I wanted to hug her. I didn’t get it often, but I held my arms out and she took the hint and we hugged, in the middle of the gallery. We pulled away and I wiped her cheeks with the balls of my hands like Caro had done for me in Valencia. And I said:

  ‘When a woman has a baby inside her, she keeps some of its cells forever. Your kid left cells inside you where you can never lose them.’ I gave her another hug. ‘You’re going to be fine, I promise. C’mon, let’s go check out some more bums and willies.’

  And Jayde beamed her Beyoncé beam and suddenly, Florence became more enjoyable than I thought it could be.

  Me and the Prossers stood at the back of the throng every time our tour group stopped for an explanation and made rude jokes and observations like the naughtiest kids in class. We saw David several times, plus Botticelli’s Venus and Artemisia Gentileschi’s Salome Beheading Holofernes, and a million and one tits, but once the kids needed nappy changes and started grizzling for food, the screeching started and I ran out of enthusiasm for art.

  The Prossers left to find the toilets while I stayed in a crowd looking at a wooden shield in a glass case with an image of a horrified woman in the centre – Caravaggio’s Medusa. I found myself standing in front of a guy, who I’d singled out earlier as being One to Watch. He carried that air of wrongness – an air I’m always so good at sniffing out. Greasy hair, darting eyes, baggy jeans. I could smell him – old milk and cigarettes. As the crowd hemmed in around Medusa and her horrified face stared down at me, I felt a pressure against my arse.

  Tickling. His fingers.

  Funny how they always gravitate to me, isn’t it?

  He stopped tickling and rubbed around my buttock region for a bit, clearly enjoying the fact I was trapped; penned in by sweaty humans as more and more crowded round the glass case, remarking on the craftsmanship of the shield, the aghast expression on Medusa’s face, the snakes spilling out of her head. And ever so slowly I reached behind me, made gentle contact with his wandering hand, held the first two fingers and with one quick jolt, snapped them right the fuck back. Crack!

  His howl filled the already-crowded space and he quickly dropped away, as did the bodily pressure around me. While all eyes were trained on him, awaiting an explanation for the sudden and prolonged screaming he’d seen fit to fill the stuffy room with, I slipped out, quietly on a sweep of floaty florals, joining up with the unwitting Prossers outside.

  We carried on walking around the exhibits but it was soon clear that none of us were appreciating it as much as we were the thought of a good gift shop and some decent cakes. We did bond over our mutual love for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I suppose that was culturally appropriate.

  ‘I used to fancy Raphael,’ I said, to the guffaws of both Prossers and Ty, even though he didn’t know what we were laughing about. ‘I don’t still fancy him,’ I blanched as Tyrion insisted on holding my hand instead of Daddy’s.

  ‘You wanted to bang a cartoon turtle?’ Ryan guffawed, drawing several snooty looks from tourists with earpieces in.

  ‘Well, he was the hottest one. Oh, come on, don’t tell me you never got wood for Daphne from Scooby Doo or She-Ra.’

  ‘I didn’t. But Jessica Rabbit, now you’re talking. At least she’s human.’

  ‘Yeah, but she shagged a rabbit.’

  ‘He had a good sense of humour, Old Rodge. It’s not all about looks.’

  ‘Says the guy who spends half his life flexing before a full-length mirror,’ scoffed Jayde. ‘I used to fancy Baloo.’

  ‘Jungle Book Baloo?’ said Ryan, incredulous.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Ryan threw me a look and I caught it and threw one back at him.

  ‘Hey, the heart wants what it wants,’ said Jayde. ‘He was so cuddly. And that deep voice. And he could dance. That bear had some serious moves.’

  Ryan seemed surprised. ‘I never knew you were into chonks.’

  ‘I’m not, as a rule. There was just something about Baloo.’

  ‘Silly Mummy,’ Tyrion giggled. Ryan picked him up and threw him over his back in a fireman’s lift and we headed off out into the crowds.

  Our coach gang was supposed to meet back outside the gold jewellery store on the corner of the piazza at 4.00 p.m. so we ditched the guided tour and made our own way around the rest of the city.

  I enjoyed my time with the Prossers, talking to their kids, making up stories about hunched creatures living in the bell tower of the Santa Croce and the horses who drew the carts of lazy-assed tourists through the streets. I got to carry Sansa for a bit when she didn’t want to go in her buggy and her parents were getting tired of holding her. I never minded and I liked smelling her head. We played the full cheek game again and counted pigeons together – the child was a genius with numbers by the time I’d finished with her. I tried not to close my eyes and imagine she was my Ivy – I really did.

  We each took it in turns to mind the pushchair full of bags while one of us dipped into a shop to investigate souvenir shot glasses or designer leather goods but for all the fun I had, I wasn’t part of their family. It made my teeth itch to see how happy they were as a unit, the four of them. Swinging Ty between them. Ryan with Sansa on his shoulders, her holding onto his ears. Taking licks of each other’s gelato. Happy human bonds. I read the message from Dannielle again.

  Tenoch Espinoza, Hacienda Santuario, Camino Cabo Este, Rocas Calientes. No reply to my message with further explanations.

  Around an hour before our meeting point at the gold shop, we stopped for refreshments in an outdoor café overlooking the square. Rhiannon wanted a pizza, every flavour cannoli and a proper hot chocolate – Hilary ordered grilled sea bream and a papaya and mango frullato.

  ‘On us,’ said Jayde as I fumbled in my bag for my purse. ‘No arguments.’

  Bardot and Gareth were paying when we spotted them. Gareth was fumbling about in his wife’s handbag for the money – well, I’m guessing it was money. Certainly wasn’t to find his fucking balls.

  ‘Hi guys, you having a good time?’ asked Bardot, specifically to Jayde and Ryan without so much as a glance at me. I was playing funny faces with Ty. I mimicked Bardot’s face and he fell about his chair laughing.

  ‘Yeah, good thanks,’ said Ryan. Gareth got out some caricature they’d had done of him and Bardot by a street artist – the guy clearly had talent. He’d depicted Bardot as some sort of devil with smoke emanating from her nostrils. She wasn’t amused. Gareth smiled. A lot.

  It wasn’t their fault, Ryan and Jayde’s. They were distracted, getting directions for an artisan chocolate shop nearby. But it did mean that I was the only one who had focus. The only one who saw her coming.

  A shabby blonde with fierce black eyeb
rows and chipped nails. I’d seen her lingering outside the church when we’d arrived and the only reason she’d piqued my interest was because I can smell a wrong-un at ten paces. It’s one of my gifts, along with ready-made sarcasm and terrific hand jobs.

  There wasn’t a discernible trait to set her apart from any one of the thousands of other people I’d glanced at that day – it was an instinct. She was up to something. Ready to pounce on a handbag, was my first guess. I watched her like a razor-eyed hawk.

  ‘Do the face again,’ Ty whined opposite. ‘Do it, Hilly.’ He’d climbed on his chair and was bending down to his plate picking off the flakes from his sfogliatelle. We were by the rope separating the café from the busy square.

  And the woman was floating closer to the café, pretending to be on her phone but her eyes weren’t on it – they were on us. Our table. Sauntering. Eyes flicking up like a crocodile’s. My fingers lengthened. My heart pounded. With no further warning, she reached across the café ropes and snatched Ty by the waist, hoisting him up and disappearing into the crowds before anyone else saw what had happened.

  But Rhiannon saw her. Rhiannon knew exactly what was going on. And before Hilary or anyone else could stop her, she was gone, pushing through the tourists, buffering people out of the way, listening out for Ty’s cries, keeping a fixed view of the blonde head as it got further and further away.

  I desperately kept my eyes on the pilfering prize. The woman was so fast, and a few hours on a treadmill for the first time in fifteen years wasn’t cutting much ice when it came to stamina. But somehow my body responded, flooding me with the adrenaline I needed and pumping it furiously into my limbs. As the tourists thinned out and the streets narrowed, the woman slowed to a jog up a cobbled street, away from the shops, encumbered by her heavy screaming cargo.

  She thought she was home and dry. My feet were light. I grew closer. She got slower. She had her hand over his mouth but he was wriggling violently. She hit him across the face. Shouted in Italian to shut him up.

  My breathing was fast. She didn’t hear me coming.

  I reached out and grabbed her blonde hair hard in my hand and yanked her backwards, forcing two fingers into her eyes.

  ‘DROP HIM NOW.’

  She dropped Ty instantly – I could hear him crying but it was like the sound was underwater. All I could concentrate on was her and inflicting as much pain as I could.

  She wriggled and jiggled in my arms and screamed and bit down on my skin as I thrust my arm tight into her neck and pressed down.

  Ryan was there, scooping a bellowing Ty into his safe arms, sweating and puffing.

  ‘Oh my God, oh my fucking God,’ he cried. ‘I thought we’d lost you.’ He cuddled that little boy so tightly. A true dad.

  But I was having a party. The blonde woman’s knees buckled as she sank to the ground, the tighter my arm became around her throat. When she was weakened, I thrust her forwards to the cobbles and pulled her round to face me. I mounted her. Nothing was going to stop me now. Nothing could.

  It was back – that molten feeling. That urge. The wetness between my thighs as I strangled her. This potential paedophile who’d stolen my best friend. The rippling, crippling can’t-do-anything-else-but-kill thrill sizzled all the way through me. Oh, how I wanted her. So badly. Just like Derek. Like Sandra. Like Troy and Gavin and Daniel and those men at the quarry.

  This was fucking paradise.

  I straddled her body and smashed her head back onto those cobbles, again and again. And I whispered in her ear: ‘You die now. You fucking die now.’

  I squeezed her neck, making her squirm and gasp as my own face ignited. And the life force seeped away from her the tighter I held on. She was dying in my hands. Her breaths became weaker. Veins bulged in her skin, eyes bulged. And it felt exquisite. I loved it. I was home again. The thrill was too much. An orgasm heightened and rippled through my body.

  She was almost there, almost dead beneath my fingers.

  ‘Let her go! Hilary – you’ve got to let her go! You’re killing her!’

  But Hilary wasn’t my name. That’s why I didn’t hear him at first. Right then, I only knew Rhiannon.

  He was too strong and pulled me back with his free arm until me and him and Ty lay on our backs and the woman was disorientated and gasping, scrambling to her feet, coughing and stumbling from alley wall to wall, bleeding all over her face, clutching her neck. She glanced back, briefly, before tripping over her feet and running off, vanishing round a corner.

  And I lay on those cobbles, staring up at a narrow blue sky. Shaking.

  ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ Ryan soothed.

  He thought I was scared. He thought I needed placating as much as Ty did. But I wasn’t scared at all. I was shaking with ecstasy. I felt like I had been lost but now I knew where I was going. I finally felt like myself again.

  Thursday evening, 10 January – at sea

  That roving reporter on Up at the Crack when she does her reports from a mega loud factory so her foghorn voice grates even more than usual

  Holidaymakers who hold their tablets above their heads to take pictures

  People who go to Italy but don’t like the food aka Eddie Callahan. What the fuck is there not to like? Carbs and cheese. Fair enough if you’ve got an intolerance but for fuck’s sake.

  The whole cast of Stranger Things

  Davina McCall. You’re fit, we get it

  The irritating thing about being a hero when you’re an on-the-run serial killer is you have to play it down. Despite the glorious pride and excitement that fizzed in my chest like shaken cherryade, I couldn’t dine out on my daring rescue of Ty. I couldn’t crow about it as much as I wanted to. As much as Rhiannon wanted to. I had to dial up the Hilary Act for this one.

  Jayde hadn’t stopped crying since we got on the coach. ‘There were loads of witnesses,’ she sniffed. ‘They’d be able to give a good image of her.’

  ‘We should tell the cops,’ Ryan whispered into Ty’s sleeping head as the coach juddered back along the endless motorways out of Florence. ‘They should be told, in case she tries—’ He buried his face into his son’s hair.

  I was sat behind them, alone again, naturally.

  ‘Guys, look, I can’t stop you from going to the police and reporting it but please don’t mention me. Say Ryan got him back, leave me out of it.’

  ‘But you saved him,’ Jayde wept, cuddling a sleeping Sansa closely. ‘Ryan said if it wasn’t for you…’ Now she couldn’t finish her sentence either. ‘I can’t think about it.’

  ‘They might give you a reward,’ said Ryan, more to the back of the seat in front of him than to me.

  ‘I’ve had my reward,’ I said. ‘He’s back safe. I don’t need anything else.’

  And I meant it. I sat and watched the countryside ribbon past my window, sunshine streaming in, bathing my body in warm gold, my gusset still damp from the beautiful moment I thought I was killing her.

  Maybe I had. Maybe she’d gone around the corner and collapsed. A bleed on the brain. I liked to think so.

  At the ABBA tribute dinner and dance in the posh Schooner Restaurant that evening, after we’d all watched the ship pull out of La Spezia, bound for Rome, talk of my heroism had spread like a fire in a trickle of gasoline. Before long, people were lining up to say ‘well done’ or buy me drinks. Dennis flexed big time and bought me a pearl necklace from the ship shop.

  ‘That’s $200’s worth of Majorica pearls, that is,’ he announced proudly so everyone in a three-metre radius could hear. He’d left the price on the box as well, in case anyone missed it.

  ‘Thanks so much, Dennis. This is… lovely. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather receive a pearl necklace from.’

  He blushed, as Lynette piped up, ‘You more than deserve it. It’s a shame yer young man couldn’t come down. We’d like to meet him.’

  ‘Bruce? Yeah, he had a bad prawn. Can’t seem to shake it out of his system, the poor lamb. Maybe tomorrow.�
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  Sansa was in a high chair, being fed bits of turkey and chunks of potato by Ken and Gloria. Jayde and Ryan were either side of Ty who was sitting there like a little prince, being kissed every so often, his every whim being catered for, his every toy out on the table, every question answered.

  ‘Mum, why did that lady take me?’ ‘Dad, why did that lady smell funny?’ ‘Daddy, why did Hilly hurt the lady?’ ‘Is the lady dead now?’ ‘Nanny, can I have the cherry in your drink?’ ‘Grandad, what’s an ABBA?’

  It made me happy and sad to see them all fussing over him. Happy, sad, violent, calm – I was like a bubble in a spirit level, impossible to get dead centre.

  ‘Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,’ said Gloria, folding her napkin. ‘This wouldn’t have happened if he’d been on reins.’

  ‘Mum, we were in a restaurant,’ said Ryan, buttering Ty a fifth bread roll. ‘Sat down in a restaurant.’

  ‘Even so, these buggers can strike when you least expect it. You’ve got to give them no leeway—’

  ‘—we’ll have to get the kids down soon – it’s already past their bedtime – but will you join us for breakfast tomorrow, Hilary?’ said Jayde.

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’d love to. Thanks.’

  Eddie and canyon-gash Shona came over from a neighbouring table and set down a large piña colada before me – more ice than colada. I made a face.

  ‘That’s your poison, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah. But I don’t like ice. Cos there’s human shit in ice, isn’t there? I read this article online—’ Their faces fell and I remembered who I was again. ‘Thank you so much, you’re such kind people!’

  Egos smoothed, all was forgiven. ‘Well, we wanted to say well done saving the boy today, darlin’. You done real good.’

  ‘Oh. Thanks, Eddie. Shona. That’s so kind. Kind kind kind.’

  Eddie held up his hands like he’d just saved ten orphans from a fire. ‘Small price to pay. Glad the boy’s back where he belongs.’